Fort Mason Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Fort Mason occupies a point of land on San Francisco's northern waterfront, once a sand-dune headland the Spanish called Punta Medanos. Spanish gunners placed a battery there in 1797, and squatters, including John Charles Fremont, built houses on the ridge in the 1850s. The Army took the site over during the Civil War and built batteries, officers' quarters, a hospital and support buildings. Later additions include Endicott-era Battery Burnham, a 1889 mine casemate, and a 1911 searchlight shelter. After 1908 the post became the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, with piers and concrete warehouses designed by Rankin, Kellogg, and Crane in Mission Revival style. The post also served as a refugee camp and relief headquarters after the 1906 earthquake. Roughly fifty-five of about eighty structures contribute to a district that traces a century of Army construction and the supply role of the port.